Fish fins
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Feet and fins
Biomechanics Foot Fish fins EvolutionWhy do our feet look the way they do? Believe it or not, some of us do ask ourselves this question.
Curvature-induced stiffening of fish fin
Nguyen, Yu, Bandi, Venkadesan and Mandre
Biomechanics
Fish fins
How fish modulate their fin stiffness during locomotive manoeuvres remains unknown. We show that changing the fin’s curvature modulates its stiffness. Modelling the fin as bendable bony rays held together by a membrane, we deduce that fin curvature is manifested as a misalignment of the principal bending axes between neighbouring rays. An external force causes neighbouring rays to bend and splay apart, and thus stretches the membrane. This coupling between bending the rays and stretching the membrane underlies the increase in stiffness.